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Strength in breadth

While some universities are mopping up the A grades, others focus on diversity,
says Donald Ridley

Once upon a time, perhaps three decades ago, about 10 per cent of
school-leavers went to university. They were the elite of the secondary school
system. They came with a standard middle-class UK education and three hard-won
A levels. Academics did not have to work too hard to teach them. Very few
mature students were provided with an opportunity to rectify earlier
educational failures. There were few international students, few European
students and few students from ethnic minorities.

Think also about the nature of the "A-level" assessment. As a nation we have
been both improving the quality of our teaching and specifying very finely "the
criteria" of success for students doing AS and A2 examinations (to give them
their proper names). These criteria are not secret so people naturally aim for
"the criteria". The loose marking schemes of 30 years ago and the judgements of
rushed examiners have been replaced by a more uniform and fairer framework. Of
course it has constraints, but that is the price of uniformity and
comparability; and so it should be. This uniformity opens the gates of
opportunity to those accessing higher education by less conventional
routes.

Doubting pundits need only pop into their local bookshop and look at the broad
range of excellent revision guides to see why people do better. There is now no
excuse for not knowing what you are doing in AS/A2 these days.

The truth of the matter is that the standards of the system as a whole have
risen, not fallen. People are not so easily allowed to fall by the
wayside.

Their potential is more carefully nurtured.

The old system failed people by not supporting them in their studies. It was
outrageous that about 30 per cent of A-level results were fails. Now that
should have been headline news. An A grade of today is not an A grade of 30
years ago: it's neither better nor worse - it's different and it's part of a
far better system.

So what does this mean for university admissions? Universities know that three
A grades is likely to mean a trouble-free student who progresses happily
through the system and gets a 2:1 - probably. Good for quality assurance
exercises, good for an easy academic life and good for the mid-20th
century.

But the truth of the matter is that the interesting and profitable
opportunities for 21st-century universities lie in living with the realities of
global society as it is today, serving community needs and having a fun time
doing research and scholarship as part of this. If some universities are busy
mopping up people with three A grades in clearing, let them. They will be
creating relatively uniform, uninteresting cohorts for themselves, consisting
of students who have competently and bookishly made their way through school
and will competently and bookishly continue to good degrees and worthy, if not
sometimes dull, careers.

Better by far to work with a broader spectrum of people that reflects today's
society in all its breadth and depth. That's where the innovative talent of the
future lies. To anyone who thinks that standards have fallen, enter the A2 of
your choice and do the exams. Let's see what you get. Then we can draw a
comparison over the years. This might just prove a humbling experience. But in
the mean time, some of us at least are grateful to those universities that take
the surfeit of three A grade candidates, so that we can get on with the best
part of the job - learning from our broadly based eclectic and questioning
students, many of whom, horror of horrors, may not have any A levels. How could
such a thing be possible? Well, that's another success story of the reform of
higher education in the UK.

Donald Ridley is principal lecturer in psychology at the University of East
London and an admissions tutor.

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